Thoughts on Silent Rounds By Tina Curran ~ (Aug 2018)

Thoughts on Silent Rounds

By Tina Curran

Sometimes as I’ve been focusing on slower opening rounds with my advanced students, those who know the intermediate form well and are working on embodiment and beginning push hands, I feel that skipping the silent round would save time. After all, I want to remind them to hang from the heavens, to feel their joints soften, to feel their feet on the ground, to be aware of that deep belly awareness and centering we call the dantian. Those reminders, different ones at different times depending on their needs, or mine, happen during the second opening round.

So what benefit does the silent round bring besides being a tribute, or an homage, to the history of Tai Chi when it was nestled secure within families who hid its light from all but the determined few who followed along in silence for years?

Sometimes leading an opening silent round can be a bit like trying to rein in a herd of wild horses. It can be really hard for people to slow down, to match the speed of the others in the room. They have arrived at class, through the traffic or bus delay, leaving behind the kids or the messy house or the ailing spouse, and now they want to DO Tai Chi. They want to Accomplish something.

And for the teacher, it’s not so different. We may arrive at classes early and do a round, but we have lives too, are sometimes delayed and bring our own worries and preoccupations. Our minds can be occupied with what we plan to teach, our awareness of the class and what they need. As a teacher, I need and value that time before the beginning of the class to relax and sink into my dantian, to really be there.

Lately I see the silent round as an airlock – the decompression chamber between that busy life of the ten thousand things that we, teachers and students, are leaving behind for this long moment of dantian-focused, deeply relaxing time in Tai Chi that can happen in class. A time of tuning in to the moment simply through the movement of the body, of becoming present, and of tuning in to each other, ‘putting our minds together as one.’ This is leaving-behind time. This is change-of-air time. It doesn’t need another mental layer because it is about beginning to see our mental layer as it is in that moment and allowing it to change.

I began to look for a way to say that – to tune us all in to what is silent in us, what is still chattering away, and to begin to focus the energy in the room:

‘As we do our silent round, be aware of the silence in yourself, right there behind what you’re thinking about.’ Or … ‘allow your mind to be silent.’ Or… ‘be aware of thoughts that come and go.’

Or sometimes I just stay silent.

Closing Round? Yes, as the old manuals say: Healing. Smooth. A Little Faster.